Tomotherapy after pleurectomy or decortication or biopsy for malignant pleural mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Tomotherapy after pleurectomy or decortication or biopsy for malignant pleural mesothelioma, by S. Bölükbas, J. Schirren, M. Eberlein (Journal of Thoracic Oncology, 2013).

The study

• Authors: S. Bölükbas, J. Schirren, M. Eberlein
• Journal: Journal of Thoracic Oncology
• Published: 2013;8(5):e50
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item is a letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reported no new patient data. The authors commented on an earlier article by Minatel and colleagues on tomotherapy, a radiation therapy technique, given after pleurectomy/decortication or biopsy for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). They noted that giving radiation to patients who still have both lungs is challenging, and they acknowledged the earlier study's results on acute and mid-term side effects. They wrote that because MPM is rare and rapidly fatal, disease-free survival, overall survival and patterns of failure matter for every study reporting treatment outcomes. The earlier study had a median follow-up of 19 months, ranging from 6 to 29 months. For that reason the authors argued that at least short- and mid-term information on relapse inside or outside the treated target area should have been available. They also pointed out that the pleura between the lung lobes was not included in the target area. They asked whether recurrences near the lung fissures differed between patients who had pleurectomy and patients who had only a biopsy.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the editor commenting on a previously published study; no new data
• Who was studied: No patients were studied by these authors. The letter discussed the earlier Minatel et al. study of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma treated with tomotherapy. The letter gives that study's median follow-up but not its number of patients.
• Exposure: No asbestos exposure was discussed. The subject was a treatment: tomotherapy radiation after pleurectomy/decortication or biopsy for malignant pleural mesothelioma.
• Main results:
  • Point made by the letter: radiation to patients with two intact lungs is challenging. The authors acknowledged the earlier study's results on acute and mid-term toxicities.
  • Point made by the letter: given the earlier study's median follow-up of 19 months, at least short- and mid-term results on treatment failures should have been available. This includes relapse within and/or outside the clinical target volume (CTV).
  • Point made by the letter: the interlobar pleura was not included in the CTV. The authors asked whether local recurrence in the fissures differed between pleurectomy patients and biopsy-only patients.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors stated that, because MPM is rare and rapidly fatal, information on disease-free survival, overall survival and patterns of failure is of great importance for every study reporting treatment outcomes for MPM.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Biopsy, Pleural Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Tomotherapy after pleurectomy/decortication or biopsy for malignant pleural mesothelioma allows the delivery of high dose of radiation in patients with intact lung — E. Minatel, M. Trovo, et al. (2012)
• Tomotherapy after pleurectomy or decortication or biopsy for malignant pleural mesothelioma — M. Trovo, E. Minatel (2013)
• High dose irradiation after pleurectomy/decortication or biopsy for pleural mesothelioma treatment — E. Parisi, A. Romeo, et al. (2017)
• Mesothelioma at era of helical tomotherapy: results of two institutions in combining chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy — A. Sylvestre, M.A. Mahé, et al. (2011)
• Thoracic shaping technique to avoid residual space after extended pleurectomy/decortication — S. Bölükbas, M. Eberlein, et al. (2013)
• Extrapleural pneumonectomy or pleurectomy/decortication for malignant pleural mesothelioma — S. Hasegawa (2014)

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